Today was a blissfully light day in the query realm. Only 87 queries in my inbox. Apparently everyone queried me last week. As of 3:44 pm, all queries have been answered.

I almost had hard time sending my form today. Several times I added a line at the bottom of the query to be helpful. We'll see if I regret that later.

I requested 3 manuscripts.

A MG SUPER 8-ISH MS!! (I'm super excited about this, I've wanted something in this genre for a while)
Upmarket Women's fiction with crossover appeal! For fans of Jodi Picoult!
Historical YA--the author likened it to fans of Laini Taylors Lips Touch Three Times, if that's true I'm sold

I regretfully passed on 2 manuscripts.

An adult women's fiction/revenge story that was pitched for fans of Emily Giffin. Loved the query, didn't love the tone of the pages.
A YA sci-fi that had a BSG feel in concept, but the pages needed some work. The voice didn't seem consistent.

My query thoughts this week are: Proofread
In one query this week someone related their main character to a well known popular main character of another series that I quite like. Only, they spelled that main character's name wrong, and not typo wrong, but they gave her a different but similar first name. This makes me wonder how similar those characters really are and if the author has actually read those novels. This is also a mistake that could have been easily fixable by googling the series.

I mentioned this to the fiercely talented Danielle Barthel who must listen to me complain about everything since she sits close to my desk, and she said: "It surprises me that people don't double check their queries."

And it surprises me too. You only have a few paragraphs and you've presumably spent a lot of time and put in a lot of emotional investment into your novel. Please proofread your query. Make sure any facts or names or titles that you're using are in fact accurate

And be careful what you say in emails...
This is more a general thought than just a query thought, but it happened twice! in the query box today--someone meant to forward my non-form response from last week to a friend with comments only replied to me by accident. In the email age we have all replied accidentally when we meant to forward something to someone else. These mistakes happen. I have made them myself. I've also learned it's best to not write things down that I wouldn't want to make their way into the wrong hands.

Today I also learned when someone accidentally replies to me and says nasty things about me to a friend, then requeries me separately, I will pass.

About Post Author

Suzie Townsend is a literary agent with New Leaf Literary. She represents all brands of children's and adult fiction and loves strong characters and voice driven stories that break out of the typical tropes of their genres.

That reply all feature has made me want to crawl under the floor and die on a couple of occasions.I'm about to start the query process again. Not looking forward to it. So much hurry up and wait. Only 87? Maybe now is a good time. :)

Super 8 was really enjoyable I thought. Also, Suzie I am sorry to hear someone was saying nasty things about you. Sometimes no matter how good of people we are or even how kind we are in our professional lives, there are still people who lash out. You don't deserve that.

Thank you for the helpful tips as usual and I hope your upcoming week goes well :)